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What’s the traffic going to be like around Ascension Day in Denmark?

The day before Ascension Day is one of the biggest travel days of the year in Denmark, with hundreds of thousands of people setting off for their first beach break of the year. Here's what you need to know about the likely traffic hotspots.

What's the traffic going to be like around Ascension Day in Denmark?
The E20 motorway on the island of Funen is expected to be crowded on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday. Photo: Tim Kildeborg Jensen/Ritzau Scanpix

When will the traffic be worst? 

Denmark’s Roads Directorate expects traffic to start to get heavy from 2pm on Wednesday May 8th as Danes in the big cities leave work early and set off for summer houses by the coast, with congestion likely to continue until at least 7pm. 

In its traffic forecast, it predicts that some of the worst period will come late on Wednesday afternoon when cars leaving on holiday will be combined with the normal rush hour traffic, with these times given a red traffic light in its holiday travel guide. 

The agency also expects congestion in some areas on Ascension Day itself, May 9th, particularly between 11am and 2pm, although this only warrants an amber traffic light. 

When people return from their four-day break, the agency expects traffic to be heaviest on Sunday May 12th between 12am and 4pm, although this again only gets an amber warning. 

The Danish Roads Directorate has warned against travelling on Wednesday netween 2pm and 7pm. Photo: Danish Roads Directorate

Where will the traffic be worst? 

The directorate is warning of heavy traffic on the E20 motorway between Copenhagen and the Great Belt Bridge over to Funen, across Funen and also around Kolding on Jutland, with traffic dissipating as it then splits off to the various holiday destinations on the peninsular.  

It is also warning of heavy traffic on Road 16 and Road 21 in northern Zealand. 

On the Jutland peninsular it is forecasting heavy traffic on the Road 40 up to Skagen, on the E45 motorway between Kolding and Aarhus, and on the Road 11 up the west coast of Jutland between Ribe and Ringkøbing. 

Source: Danish Roads Directorate

What can you do to keep up to date with the traffic? 

The Roads Directorate recommends that people travelling on Wednesday, Thursday and Sunday check trafikinfo.dk before leaving and also listen to the P4 Trafik station during their journey to stay updated about any incidents or accidents on the roads.

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Do you really need to own a car living in Denmark?

Denmark is one of the most expensive countries in the world for owning a car, its public transport is one of the best, and if you want to cycle, it's mostly flat. There are few places where it makes more sense to ditch your car.

Do you really need to own a car living in Denmark?

The case against owning a car in Denmark

Denmark’s Vehicle Registration Tax, together with VAT, more than doubles the cost of buying a petrol or diesel car, making owning a car considerably more expensive in Denmark than in its neighbours Germany and Sweden, although electric cars that cost less than 436,000 kroner are currently tax-exempt.

If you use a car to commute into Copenhagen, Aarhus, or Odense, you will also often find yourself stuck in traffic jams, with the Danish Roads Directorate estimating that Danes lose 365,000 hours to traffic jams every weekday, with the Motorring 3 motorway circling Copenhagen, other major access roads to Copenhagen, the E20 south of Odense, and the E45 on either side of Aarhus the most congested roads in the country.

Parking can also be expensive in Danish cities, costing as much as 500 Danish kroner for 24 hours for non-residents. 

How easy is it to get around inside Danish cities without a car? 

Denmark is a cycling nation.

According to Visit Denmark, in 2022, 25 percent of all trips under five kilometers across Denmark were done by bike, and 16 percent of all journeys of any kind. 

Copenhagen’s aim is for fully half of all trips to work and education to be done on bike by 2025. In 2019, the city was already on 44 percent. It’s a similar situation for smaller cities like Aarhus, Odense, Vejle, Aalborg and Esbjørg.

But even if you can’t or don’t want to cycle, you can still get by in most places without a car, thanks to Denmark’s excellent public transport networks.

Public transport in Denmark has significantly improved only over the last five years, with several new metro lines and light rail systems opening. 

With the Cityringen (M3) and Harbour lines (M4) opening in 2019 and 2020, respectively the Copenhagen Metro can now get you to most places in the city. 

Denmark scrapped its city tram systems in the 1960s and 1970s, with cities like Aarhus and Odense instead shifting to buses for public transport.

There has recently been a recent revival, however, with Aarhus, Odense and Copenhagen all opening or building new tram/light rail systems.

Odense Letbane opened in 2022, making it easy to get to the out of town shopping area where IKEA and other superstores are based and also to the new hospital. Aarhus Letbane opened in 2017, and takes passengers all the way up the coast around the city, from Odder in the south to Grenaa in the north.

Copenhagen next year plans to open a light-rail system which will travel in a ring around the city’s outer suburbs linking Lundtofte in the north to Ishøj in the southwest. 

This will end one of the big drawbacks of the city’s “five finger” transport corridor plan: that while it is quick to travel from the outer suburbs to the centre and vice versa, it is complicated to travel between suburbs which are on a different transport corridors, for example from Albertslund to Herlev, or from Birkerød to Buddinge. 

Even before that opens, however, so long as you are only travelling in and out from the centre, it is extremely convenient to get from central Copenhagen to its suburbs and surrounding towns using the S-trains, which run from 5am until half-past midnight on weekdays, and all night on Fridays and Saturdays. 

This means you can eat out and party with your friends until the small hours, and still normally get back to Køge, Høje Taastrup, Frederikssund, Farum and Hillerød, the furthest out stops. 

Where might you struggle without a car? 

Plans for a light railway or tram between Vejle and Billund, or between the so-called Triangle Region between the cities of Vejle, Kolding and Fredericia have so far come to nothing, and even though the local and regional bus and train services can be good, it’s certainly tougher to survive without a car if you don’t live on Zealand, near Aarhus, or perhaps on Funen. 

Many people do in fact live without owning a car even in the more far-flung villages on Jutland, and on islands like Bornholm, Lolland and Falster.

They still manage to get everywhere they want to go, but it does require waiting. It’s certainly possible to live without a car, but you might feel limited in where to and when you can travel. 

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